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bridge, where he became a Puritan, and was afterwards minister in Lincolnshire for twenty years, bearing a high reputation for his personal worth and his theological acumen, till a citation before Laud's Ecclesiastical Court induced him to escape prosecution in America, where he landed in 1633, and was established the same year in the ministry of the Boston Church, which he held nineteen years, till his death in 1652. He was an ardent admirer of church and state authority according to the theocratic Mosaic dispensation of the Jews. In 1636, Cotton was appointed by the General Court to prepare a scheme of laws for the government of the colony. He performed the task, but his work was not accepted, the "Body of Liberties," by Ward, being preferred in its stead. Cotton's "Abstract of the Laws of New England as they are now established," was printed in London, in 1641, a book which has passed incorrectly for the code in actual operation in New England. Heresy, by these proposed laws, was punishable with death. Scripture authorities were freely quoted, as, for sending out warrants for calling of the General Court, Josh. xxiv. 1.

The ingenuity of Cotton was considerably taxed in his controversy with Roger Williams, in his attempts to reconcile the authority of the civil power with rights of conscience. Williams had charged him with "holding a bloody tenent of persecution;" when Cotton entitled his reply The Bloody Tenent washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb,† to which Williams rejoined. The controversy was conducted with much polemi

cal acuteness on both sides.

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In 1642, he published a tract on Set Forms of Prayer from which we may present a characteristic passage:

In case a distressed soul do meet with a prayer penned by a godly and well-experienced Christian, and do find his own case pithily and amply deciphered and anatomized therein, we deny not but his heart and affections may go along with it, and say

This is reprinted in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., First Series, v. 178, and sequel. In 1655, after Cotton's death, this was published in London in a complete form by William Aspinwall, as "collected and digested into the ensuing method by that godly grave and judicious divine Mr. John Cotton of Boston in New England, in his lifetime, and presented to the General Court of Massachusetts." matter, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Third Series, viii. 192, 8. See F. C. Gray's review of the

The Bloody Tenent, washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb: being discussed and discharged of blood-guiltiness by just defence. Wherein the great questions of this present time are handled, viz. How farre liberty of conscience ought to be given to those that truly fear God? And how farre restrained to turbulent and pestilent persons, that not only raze the foundation of godliness, but disturb the Civil Peace where they live? Also how farre the magistrate may proceed in the duties of the first Table? And that all magistrates ought to study the word and will of God, that they may frane their government according to it. Discussed as they are alledged from various Scriptures, out of the Old and New Testaments. Wherein also the practice of Princes is debated, together with the judgment of ancient and late writers of most precious esteem. Whereunto is added a Reply to Mr. Williams' Answer to Mr. Cotton's Letter. By John Cotton, Batchelor in Divinity, and Teacher of the Church of Christ at Boston, in New England. London: Printed by Matthew Symmons, for Hannah Allen, at the Crowne in Pope's-Head Alley, 167. 4to. Pp. 195, 144.

From a modest and clear Answer to Mr. Ball's Discourse of Set Forms of Prayer, set forth in a most seasonable time, when this kingdom is now in consultation about matters of that nature, and so many godly long after the resolution in that point. Written by the Reverend and learned John Cotton. B D.. and Teacher of the Church of Christ. at Boston, in New England. London: Printed by R. O. and G.D., for Henry Overton, in Pope's Head Alley. 1642. 4to. pp. 51.

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Amen to it, and thus far may find it a lawful help to him; but if you set apart such a prayer to support him as a crutch in his prayers (as without which he cannot walk straight and upright in that duty), or if he that penned that prayer, or others that have read it, do enjoin it upon him, and forbid him to pray (and especially with others), unless he use that form, this, instead of a crutch, will prove a cudgell, to break the bones of the spirit in and force him to halt in worshipping God after the prayer, precepts of men; as it hath been said before, so it may be again remembered here; a man may help his spirit in meditation of his mortality, by beholdprovidence; but if he should set apart a death's ing a dead man's scalp cast in his way, by God's head, or take it up as enjoined to him by others, mortality, and estate of another life, but in the sight never to meditate or confer with others about his and use of the death's head, such a soul shall find but a dead heart, and a dead devotion from such a means of mortification; if some forms of prayer, especially such as gave occasion to this dispute, do now seem to be as bread to the hungry, we say no more but this: then hungry souls will never be starved, that never want store of such like bread as this is.

Cotton's Keys of the kingdom of Heaven and Power thereof exhibits his system of church government.* He published numerous discourses character, from a catechism to sermons on the and religious treatises of a practical and expository Revelations, beside his controversial religious and political writings. The titles of some of these writings are in the quaint style of the times, as his Milk for Babes, a Catechisin, and his Meat for Strong Men, which was an exposition of civil government in a plantation founded with religious motives.

J Cotton

Like most of the old New England divines, he could on occasion turn his hand to verse. A specimen of this kind has been preserved in Secretary Morton's "New England's Memorial."

ON MY REVEREND AND DEAR BROTHER, MR. THOMAS HOOKER,
LATE PASTOR OF THE CHURCH AT HARTFORD ON CONNECTICUT.

To see three things was holy Austin's wish,
Rome in her flower, Christ Jesus in the flesh,
And Paul i' the Pulpit: lately men might see,
Two first, and more, in Hooker's ministry.
Zion in beauty, is a fairer sight,
Than Rome in flower, with all her glory dight:
Yet Zion's beauty did most clearly shine
In Hooker's rule and doctrine; both divine.
Christ in the spirit is more than Christ in flesh,
Our souls to quicken, and our states to bless
Yet Christ in spirit brake forth mightily,
In faithful Hooker's searching ministry.
Paul in the pulpit, Hooker could not reach,
Yet did he Christ in spirit so lively preach
That living hearers thought he did inherit
A double portion of Paul's lively spirit.

The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and Power thereof, according to the word of God, by that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. John Cotton, Teacher of the Church at Boston, in New England, tending to reconcile some present differences about discipline, was published in London in 1644. with a preliminary address to the Reader, by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, members of the Westminster Assembly. It was reprinted by Tappan & Dennet, Boston, 1843.

Prudent in rule, in argument quick, full;
Fervent in prayer, in preaching powerful;
That well did learned Ames record bear,
The like to him he never wont to hear.

'Twas of Geneva's worthies said, with wonder,
(Those worthies three) Farell was wont to thunder;
Viret, like rain, on tender grass to shower;
But Calvin, lively oracles to pour.

All these in Hooker's spirit did remain,

A son of thunder, and a shower of rain,

A pourer forth of lively oracles,

In saving souls, the sum of miracles.

Now blessed Hooker, thou art set on high,
Above the thankless world, and cloudy sky;
Do thou of all thy labour reap the crown,
Whilst we here reap the seed which thou hast sown.

to which we may add from John Norton's life,
"A taste of the Divine Soliloquies between God
and his Soul, from these two transcribed poems
left behind him in his study, written with his own
hand. The one entituled thus,"-

A THANKFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE.

In mother's womb thy fingers did me make
And from the womb thou didst me safely take:
From breast thou hast me nurst my life throughout,
That I may say I never wanted ought.

In all my meals my table thou hast spread,
In all my lodgings thou hast made my bed:
Thou hast me clad with changes of array,
And chang'd my house for better far away.
In youthful wandrings thou didst stay my slide,
In all my journies thou hast been my Guide:
Thou hast me sav'd from many an unknown danger,
And shew'd me favour, even where I was a stranger.
In both my callings thou hast heard my voice,
In both my matches thou hast made my choice:
Thou gav'st me sons, and daughters, them to peer,
And giv'st me hope thou'lt learn them thee to fear.

Oft have I seen thee look with Mercy's face,
And through thy Christ have felt thy saving grace.
be:
This is the Heav'n on Earth, if any
For this, and all, my soul doth worship Thee.

"Another poem, made by Mr. Cotton (as it seemeth), upon his removal from Boston to this wilderness:"

I now may expect some changes of miseries,
Since God hath made me sure

That himself by them all will purge mine iniquities,
As fire makes silver pure.

Then what though I find the deep deceitfulness
Of a distrustful heart!

Yet I know with the Lord is abundant faithfulness,
He will not lose his part.

When I think of the sweet and gracious company
That at Boston once I had,

And of the long peace of a fruitful Ministry
For twenty years enjoy'd:

The joy that I found in all that happiness

Doth still so much refresh me,

That the grief to be cast out into a wilderness
Doth not so much distress me.

For when God saw his people, his own at our town,
That together they could not hit it,

But that they had learned the language of Askelon,
And one with another could chip it.

He then saw it time to send in a busy Elf,
A Joyner to take them asunder,

That so they might learn each one to deny himself.
And so to peece together.

When the breach of their bridges, and all their
banks arow,

And of him that school teaches;

When the breach of the Plague, and of their Trade also

Could not learn them to see their breaches,

Then God saw it time to break out on their Ministe: 8,

By loss of health and peace;

Yea, withall to break in upon their Magistrates,
That so their pride might cease.

Cotton Mather has written his life in the Magnalia, with great unction and many puns. "If Boston," says he, "be the chief seat of New England, it was Cotton that was the father and glory of Boston," in compliment, by the way, to whose Lincolnshire residence the city was named, and he celebrates the divines who came with him in the ship from England:-"Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, and Mr. Stone, which glorious triumvirate coming together, made the poor pecple in the wilderness, at their coming, to say, that the God of heaven had supplied them with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities: Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building.”

One of Mather's conceits in this "Life" is worthy of Dr. Fuller; it has a fine touch of imagination. "Another time, when Mr. Cotton had modestly replied unto one that would much talk and crack of his insight into the Revelations; "Brother, I must confess myself to want light in those mysteries:"-the man went home and sent him a pound of candles; upon which action this good man bestowed only a silent smile. He would not set the beacon of his great soul on fire at the landing of such a little cockboat."

Mather quotes the funeral eulogy on Cotton written by Benjamin Woodbridge,* the first graduate of Harvard, which was probably read by Franklin before he wrote the famous typographical epitaph on himself:

A living, breathing Bible; tables where
Both covenants, at large, engraven were;
Gospel and law, in's heart, had each its column;
His head an index to the sacred volume;
His very name a title-page; and next,
His life a commentary on the text.
O, what a monument of glorious worth,
When, in a new edition, he comes forth,
Without erratas, may we think he'll be
In leaves and covers of eternity!

It was to Cotton New England was indebted for the custom of commencing the Sabbath on Saturday evening. "The Sabbath," says Mather, "he began the evening before: for which keeping of the Sabbath, from evening to evening, he wrote arguments before coming to New England:

The Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, the first graduate from Harvard College (1642), was born in 1622. He returned to England and preached at Newbury, Berks, with reputation as a scholar and orator. In 1662 he was ejected, but by particular favor of the king, by whom he was highly esteemed, was allowed to preach privately. He died at Inglefield, Berks, 1684. A few of his sermons were published.

and, I suppose, 'twas from his reason and practice that the Christians of New England have generally done so too."

The life of Cotton was also written by his successor in the Church at Boston, JOHN NORTON, an English curate, who came to America and was settled as the colleague of Ward at Ipswich. While at the latter place, he acquired distinguished literary reputation by the elegant latinity of his Answer to Apollonius, the pastor of the Church in Middlebury, who, at the request of the divines of Zealand, had sent over various questions on Church Government to the clergy of New England. Of this work, published in London in 1648, Dr. Thomas Fuller, that warm appreciator of character, says in his Church history,* of his inquiries into the tenets of the Congregationalists, "that of all the authors I have perused concerning the opinions of these Dissenting Brethren, none to me was more informative than Mr. John Norton (one of no less learning than mode-ty), minister in New England, in his answer to Apollonius." Norton, in his services to the state, was charged with a delicate commission from the Puritans of New England to address his Majesty Charles II. on the Restoration. He died suddenly in 1663, shortly after his return from this embassy.

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Norton's Life and Death of that deservedly famous Man of God, Mr. John Cotton, shows a scholar's pen as well as the emotion of the divine, and the warm heart of the friend. It abounds with those quaint learned illustrations which those old preachers knew how to employ so well, and which contrast so favorably with the generally meagre style of the pulpit of the present day. Thus, in introducing Cotton on the stage of life, he treats us to a quaint and poetical essay on youthful education. Though vain man would be wise, yet may he be compared to the cib, as well as the wild asses' colt. Now we know the bear when she bringeth forth her young ones, they are an ill favored lump, a mass without shape, but by continual licking, they are brought to some form. Children are called infants of the palms (Lam. ii. 20), or educations, not because they are but a span in length, but because the midwife, as soon as they are born, stretcheth out their joints with her hand, that they may be more straight afterwards." A conceit is not to be rejected by these old writers, come from what quarter it may; as George Herbert says

All things are big with jest: nothing that's plain But may be witty, if thou hast the vein. Here is something in another way: "Three ingredients Aristotle requires to complete a man, an innate excellency of wit, instruction, and government; the two first we have by nature, in them man is instrumental; the first we have by nature more immediately from God. This native aptitude of mind, which is indeed a peculiar gift of God, the naturalist calls the sparklings and

Book xi. sec. 51, 2.

+ Abel being dead yet speaketh; or the Life and Death of that deservedly famous man of God, Mr. John Cotton, late teacher of the Church of Christ, at Boston, in New England. By John Norton, teacher of the same church. London: Tho. Newcomb. 1658. 4to. pp. 51. This work is dated by the author, Boston, Nov. 6, 1657.

seeds of virtue, and looks at them as the principles and foundations of better education. These the godly-wise advise such to whom the inspection of youth is committed, to attend to, as spring masters were wont to make a trial of the virtue latent in waters, by the morning vapors that ascend from them;" and in a marginal reference he quotes Clemens Alexandrinus, "Animi nostri sunt agri animati." "Idleness in youth," he says, "is scarcely healed without a scar in age." When he arrives at Cotton's distinguished collego years, he has this picture of a student's life.

He is now in the place of improvement, amongst his paXXo, beset with examples, as so many objects of better emulation. If he slacken his pace, his quicken it, there are still those which are before. compeers will leave him behind; and though he Notwithstanding Themistocles excelleth, yet the trophies of Miltiades suffer him not to sleep. Cato, that Helluo, that devourer of books, is at Athens. Ability and opportunity are now met together; unto both which industry actuated with a desire to know, being joined, bespeaks a person of high expectation. The unwearied pains of ambitious and unquiet wits, are amongst the arrangements of ages. Asia and Egypt can hold the seven wonders; but the books, works, and motions of ambitious minds, the whole world cannot contain. It was an illicit aspiring after knowledge, which helped to put forth Eve's hand unto the forbidden fruit: the less marvel if irregenerate and unelevated wits have placed their summum bonum in knowledge, indefatigably pursuing it as a kind of deity, as a thing ruinous, yea, as a kind of mortal-immortality. Diogenes, Democritus, and other philosophers, accounting largeestates to be an impeliment to their proficiency in knowledge, dispossessed themselves of rich inheritances, that they might be the fitter students; preferring an opportunity of study before a large patrimony. Junius, yet ignorant of Christ, can want his country, necessaries, and many comforts; but he must excel. "Through desire a man having separated himself, seeketh and interme ldleth with all wisdom," Prov. xviii. 1. The elder Plinius lost his life in venturing too near to search the cause of the irruption of the hill Vesuvius. It is true, knowledge excelleth other created excellences, as much as life excelleth darkness; yet it agreeth with them in this, that neither can exempt the subject thereof from eternal misery. Whilst we seek knowledge with a selfish interest, we serve the decree; and self being destroyed according to the decree, we hence become more able to serve the command.

Cromwell, on an application in 1651 for the enCotton was on one occasion a correspondent of couragement of the Gospel in New England. The reply of the Lord Protector-For my esteemed Friend, Mr. Cotton, Pastor of the Church at Boston, in New England: The-e-is characteristic of his bewildered dogmatic godliness. "What is the Lord adoing? What prophecies are now fulfilling? Indeed, my dear Friend, between you and me, you know not me,” and the like. Čarlyle, in his Oliver Cromwell, has printed the letter and prefaced it with this recognition of the old divine66 Reverend John Cotton is a man still held in some remembrance among our New England Friends. A painful Preacher, oracular of high Gospels to New England; who in his day was well seen to be connected with the Supreme Powers of this Universe, the word of him being as a

live-coal to the hearts of many. He died some years afterwards;-was thought, especially on his deathbed, to have manifested gifts even of Prophecy, a thing not inconceivable to the human mind that well considers Prophecy and John Cotton."*

He frequently bestowed large sums on widows and orphans, and on one occasion when there was a scarcity at Southampton, on Long Island, joined with a few others in despatching "a whole bark's load of corn of many hundred bushels" to the relief of the place.

THOMAS HOOKER.

T. Hocker

THOMAS HOOKER was born at Marfield, Leicestershire, in 1586. He was educated at Cambridge, became a fellow of Emanuel college, and, or leaving the university, a popular preacher in London. In 1626 he removed to Chelmsford, Essex. After officiating as "lecturer" for four years in this place, in consequence of nonconformity with the established church he was obliged to discontinue preaching, and, by request, opened a school, in which he employed John Eliot, afterwards the Apostle to the Indians, as his usher. He not long after went over to Holland, where he remained three years, preaching at Amsterdam and Rotterdam. He then emigrated to Massachusetts, arriving at Boston, with Mr. Cotton and Mr. Stone, Sept. 4, 1633, and became the pastor of the congregation at Newtown, or Cambridge, with Mr. Stone as his assistant. "Such multitudes," says Cotton Mather, "flocked over to New England after them that the plantation of Newtown became too straight for them,' and in consequence Hooker, with one hundred of his followers, penetrated through the wilderness to the banks of the Connecticut, where they founded Hartford. A difference of opinion on minor points of church government with his clerical associates had its share in effecting this removal. Neither distance nor difference, however, led to any suspension of friendly intercourse, Hooker occasionally visiting and preaching in Massachusetts Bay, where he was always received by admiring crowds.

With the exception of these visits, the remainder of his life was spent at the colony he had founded. He enjoyed throughout his career a great reputation as a pulpit orator, and seral stories are told by Mather of wonders wrought by his prayers and sermons. On one occasion, while preaching in "the great church of Leicester (England), one of the chief burgesses in the town much opposed his preaching there; and when he could not prevail to hinder it, he set certain fidlers at work to disturb him in the church porch or churchyard. But such was the vivacity of Mr. Hooker, as to proceed in what he was about, without either the damping of his mind or the drowning of his voice; whereupon the man himself went unto the church door to overhear what he said," with such good result that he begged pardon for his offence, and became a devout Christian. His bearing was so dignified that it was said of him, "he could put a king in his pocket."

His charities were as liberal as his endowments.

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Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations, 1. 8.

Hooker's Residence at Hartford.

"He would say," remarks Mather, "that he should esteem it a favor from God, if he might live no longer than he should be able to hold up lively in the work of his place; and that when the time of his departure should come, God would! shorten the time, and he had his desire." A few

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days' illness brought him to his deathbed. His last words were in reply to one who said to him, "Sir, you are going to receive the reward of all your labors," Brother, I am going to receive mercy." A little after he closed his eyes with his own hands, "and expired his blessed soul into the arms of his fellow-servants, the holy angels," on July 7, 1647.

Two hundred of his manuscript sermons were sent to England by John Higginson, the minister of Salem, himself a man of some literature, who died in 1708, at the extreme age of ninety-two years, seventy-two of which he had passed in the ministry. Nearly one hundred of these sermons were published; and he was also the author of several tracts, and of a Survey of the Sum of Church Discipline, which was published in London, 1648, under the care of Dr. Thomas Goodwin, who declares that to praise either author or work, " were to lay paint upon burnished marble, or add light unto the sun."t

The Application of Redemption by the Effectual Work of the Word and Spirit of Christ, for the Bringing Home of Lost Sinners to God, which was printed from the author's papers, written with his own hand, and attested to be such in an epistle by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye, had reached a second edition in London in 1659. It

His associate at Salem, Nicholas Noyes, wrote an elegy on him, in which he says quaintly:

For rich array caredtnot a fig,
And wore Elisha's periwig.

At ninety-three had comely face,
Adorned with majesty and grace.
Before he went among the dead,

He children's children's children had.

Noyes published an Election Sermon, 1698; a poem on the Death of Joseph Green, of Salem, 1715; and appears among the commendatory poets of the Magnalia.-Allen's Biog. Dict. + Allen's Biog. Dict.

is a compact small quarto of seven hundred pages, exhibiting his practical divinity in the best manner of the Puritan school. One of his most popular works was The Poor Doubting Christian drawn to Christ; a seventh edition was published in Boston, 1743.

FROM THE APPLICATION OF REDEMPTION.

Follow sin by the fruits of it, as by the bloody footsteps, and see what havoc it makes in every place wherever it comes: go to the prisons, and see so many malefactors in irons, so many witches in the dungeon; these are the fruits of sin; look aside, and there you shal! see one drawn out of the pit where he was drowned; cast your eye but hard by, and behold another lying weltering in his blood, the knife in his throat, and his hand at the knife, and his own hands become his executioner; thence go to the place of execution, and there you shall hear many prodigal and rebellious children and servants upon the ladder, leaving the last remembrance of their untimely death, which their distempers have brought about. I was born in a good place where the gospel was preached with plainness and power, lived under godly masters and religious parents; a holy and tender-hearted mother I had, many prayers she made, tears she wept for me, and those have met me often in the dark in my dissolute courses, but I never had a heart to hear and receive. All you stubborn and rebellious, hear and fear, and learn by my harms; hasten from thence into the wilderness, and see Corah, Dathan, and Abiram going down quick to hell, and all the people flying and crying lest we perish also; Lo, this rebellion hath brought; Turn aside but to the Red sea, and behold all the Egyptians dead upon the shore; and ask who slew them? and the story will tell you a stubborn heart was the cause of their direful confusion: From thence send your thoughts to the cross where our Saviour was crucified, he who bears up heaven and earth with his power, and behold those bitter and brinish tears, and hideous cries, My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? And make but a peephole into hell, and lay your ear and listen to those yellings of the devils and damned, cursing the day that ever they were born, the means that ever they enjoyed, the inercies that ever they did receive, the worm there gnawing, and never dies, the fire there burning, and never goes out, and know this sin hath done, and it will do so to all that love it and live in it.

FROM THE DOUBTING CHRISTIAN DRAWN TO CHRIST.

Many a poor soul mourns and cries to heaven for mercy, and prays agains a stubborn, hard heart, and is weary of his life, because this vile heart remains yet in him; and yet haply gets little or no redress. The reason is, and the main wound lies here, he goes the wrong way to work; for, he that would have grace must (first of all) get Faith, Faith will bring all the rest: buy the field and the pearl is thine; it goes with the purchase. Thou must

not think with thine own struggling to get the mastery of a proud heart; for that will not do: But let thy faith go first to Christ, and try what that can do. There are many graces necessary in this work; as meekness, patience, humility, and wisdom: Now faith will fetch all these, and possess the soul of them. Brethren, therefore if you set any price upoa these graces, buy the field, labor for faith; get that and you get all. The apostle saith, 2 Cor. iii. 18: We all with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory. The Lord Christ is the glass, and the glorious grace of God in Christ, is that

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glory of the Lord: Therefore, first behold this grace in Christ by faith (and thou must do so before thou caust receive grace). First, see humility in Christ, and then fetch it thence: First see strength and courage in him, whereby to enable thy weak heart, and strength will come; there fetch it, and there have it. Would you then have a meek, gracious, and humble heart? I dare say for some of you that you had rather have it than anything under heaven, and would think it the best bargain that ever you made; which is the cause why you say, Oh, that I could once see that day, that this proud heart of mine might be humbled: Oh, if I could see the last blood of my sins, I should then think myself happy, none more, and desire to live no longer." But is this thy desire, poor soul? Then get faith, and so buy the whole, for they all go together: Nor think to have them upon any price, not having faith. I mean patience, and meekness, and the humble heart: But buy faith, the field, and you have the pearl. Further, would you have the glory of God in your eye, and be more heavealy minded? Then look to it, and get it by the eye of faith: Look up to it in the face of Jesus Christ, and then you shall see it; and then hold you there: For there, and there only, this vision of the glory of God is to be seen, to your everlasting peace and endless comfort. When men use to make a purchase, they speak of all the commodities of it, as, there is so much wood, worth so much; and so much stock, worth so much; and then they offer for the whole, answerable to these severals. So here; there is item for an heavenly mind, and that's worth thousands; and, item for an humble heart, and that's worth millions: and so for the rest. And are those graces so much worth? What is faith worth then? Hence we may conclude and say, Oh, precious faith! precious indeed, that is able, through the spirit of Christ, to bring so many, nay, all graces with it: As one degree of grace after another, grace here and happiness for ever hereafter. If we have but the hearts of men (I do not say of Christians) methinks this that is spoken of faith should provoke us to labor always, above all things, for this blessed grace of God, the grace of faith.

JOHN WINTHROP,

THE first Governor of Massachusetts, was descended from a highly honorable English family, and born at the family seat at Groton, county of Suffolk, January 12, 1587.* His father, Adam Winthrop, was an accomplished lawyer; and the following, from his pen, reprinted in the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, shows him to have been possessed of poetic feeling.

VERSES MADE TO THE LADIE MILDMAY AT YE BIRTH OF HER
SONNE HENERY.

MADAME: I mourn not like the swan
That ready is to die,
But with the Phoenix I rejoice,
When she in fire doth fry.

My soul doth praise the Lord,
And magnify his name,

For this sweet child which in your womb
He did most finely frame.

And on a blessed day

Hath made him to be born,
That with his gifts of heavenly grace,

His soul he might adorn.

* Mather (Magnalia, Ed. 1853, i. 119) has it June, and is followed by Eliot. January is the true date from the family record.

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